


we are, we are, we are monsters

by Yevynaea



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: ANGST & SPOOK have fun y'all, Alternate Universe, And theyre maybe a little bit dead still, Angst, Beast Wirt, Character Undeath, Except not??? Totally?, F/M, Gen, Nightmares, One Shot, Prompt Fill, Spooky, Thats the basic premise, The boys get home as per canon but they have spoopy magic powers, Time Skips, beast greg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 05:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12720435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: When two brothers wake and breathe and live, darkness clings to them, digs into them, claims them. They have seen the forest, they have known the Other and the After. Their hearts still beat, but they are shadows.





	we are, we are, we are monsters

**Author's Note:**

> faenova prompted me with the rhyme you'll see in the boys' nightmares, and it became a slight au that I'm Obsessed with.

Here is something true about the Unknown: it is part of the After. And here is something true about the After: it rarely likes to give up souls it swallows.

When two brothers wake and breathe and  _ live,  _ darkness __ clings to them, digs into them, claims them. They have seen the forest, they have known the Other and the After. Their hearts still beat, but they are shadows.

 

The hospital doesn't make them stay overnight. They're very lucky, the doctor tells their parents, that they weren't in the water very long.

They go home, and, exhausted, they sleep.

Their mother checks on them during the night. If she got closer, she might’ve noticed that neither is breathing.

 

“Do you ever feel like, if the shadows were dark enough, you could just walk right through them?” Wirt asks Sara one night, when the two of them are walking home from a night of studying and movies with their friends. It's chilly outside, but he barely notices. He's never really been able to shake the bone-deep cold of the forest winter. “I- I guess that sounds silly, doesn't it.”

“No,” Sara smiles. “It sounds cool. Like a superhero!”

Wirt laughs.

He avoids the deep pools of shadow between street lamps. He doesn't want to know if he’d fall in.

 

“Watch this!” Greg says, his classmates gathered close around him in the grass. He digs his fingers into the ground, focuses, and-- between his hands, a small black turtle crawls up out of the soil.

The other kids exclaim in surprise, laughing or demanding to know  _ how _ . Greg just shrugs.

“I was in the backyard, and I wanted to see another turtle like me and Wirt saw in the Unknown, and there it was!” he smiles brightly. The turtle has crawled up onto his hand, and he holds it up to smile at it.

“Weird,” says one kid.

“Awesome,” says another.

“Can I hold it?” asks a third.

“Yeah! Just don't eat it,” Greg says solemnly. The other children laugh, or make noises of disgust at the mere suggestion.

 

(And here is something true about shadows: they can't pretend for very long to still  _ be _ in the way living people are.)

 

The more time goes by, the stranger the boys become.

 

_ “I saw their eyes glow in the dark.” _

 

_ “His shadow had  _ antlers _! No, really, I swear!” _

 

_ “I bet they're demons.” _

 

_ “Witches.” _

 

_ “Monsters.” _

  
  
  


Wirt is an adult. He is a husband. He goes on walks through the woods sometimes, late at night; Sara knows better than to worry after him, but sometimes she waits up, meeting his too-bright eyes in the darkness of the living room before she flicks the light on and the shadows melt off of him and he looks human again.

The trees and the shadows croon, always, _ours, ours, ours._ They're louder when the veil is thin. He doesn't listen. He's happy where he is.

 

Greg is an adult. He lives with two friends and a very old frog and a very new puppy. His roommates know better than to question the little black turtles they find in the house out of nowhere, or the way the puppy loves Greg best in the daytime but avoids him like the plague once the sun sets.

The trees and the shadows croon, always,  _ ours, ours, ours _ . They're louder when the veil is thin. He doesn't listen. He's happy where he is.

  
  


Wirt is barely more than a child, sitting in the dirt, and the forest surrounding him is endless and dark. He looks up at the call of a bluebird, and sees a girl with red hair.

“Beatrice,” he guesses.

“Wirt,” she replies. Then Beatrice becomes Lorna becomes Auntie Whispers becomes the Woodsman becomes Enoch becomes the Beast.

Wirt can't move, can't stand, can't run-- he looks, and his legs and hands have sunken into the soil, becoming roots.

“No,” he says.

The Beast steps out of the shadows, steps out of itself, and grins with Wirt’s face-- his  _ adult _ face, his face  _ now _ , but with those horrid glowing eyes, spiralling antlers.

“This is a dream,” Wirt realizes.

Beast-him is holding a familiar axe.

“Oh, poor boy,” it says, stifling laughter, voice dripping with false sympathy. Its voice is no one’s and everyone’s, himself and Sara and Beatrice and Greg and every soul he's ever met. “You’re still pretending to be human, aren't you?”

“No,” Wirt repeats, and doesn't know what he means by it. Branches grow around him, but only enough to keep him held still.

_ No, I'm not pretending. I am human. _

_ No, I've stopped pretending. I know better. _

“Severed heads and severed eyes, are much less sweet than severed  _ lies _ ,” sing-songs the monster, slowly raising the axe above its head. The metal glints, reflecting sourceless light. “But if you're still pretending, then your head will have to do.”

The blade swings down.

Wirt wakes up, gasping as his lungs remember how to breathe, grasping at his own throat just to make sure it is whole.

 

Greg is a child, standing lost in a snowstorm, and the forest surrounding him is endless and dark. He looks up at the sound of his name, and sees a bluebird.

“Beatrice?” he asks.

The bird looks at him with beady eyes, sings a wordless trill. Then it is not a bird but a turtle, a frog, a wolf, a cat, it cycles through animals too fast to see until it is not an animal but a man. No-- almost a man. But those eyes and antlers are too familiar not to know.

Greg can't move, the snow is up past his knees and snaking branches keep him held still.

“No,” he says.

The Beast steps out of the shadows and looks like a person, except for the eyes, and it has Greg's face. His face now, as an adult, and-- “oh, this is a dream,” little Greg realizes.

“Very clever,” replies Beast-him. It’s holding the lantern. Greg focuses, tries to make himself older, as he should be. It works. He stares Beast-him in the face, and sees a mirror image as the dream shifts to contain him again, making him see his own empty glowing eyes, the spiralling antlers and the dripping shadows. His reflection grins. “Are you still pretending to be human?”

“No,” Greg says, truthfully.

“Good,” his reflection says approvingly. Slowly, it begins to raise the lantern, opening the glass. “Severed heads and severed eyes, are much less sweet than severed lies.”

It blows out the lantern.

Greg wakes up, blinking quickly in the deep, deep darkness, even though his eyes don't need to adjust. He doesn't bother with breathing quite yet.

  
(And here is a truth about shadows: even contained within a beating heart, they know what they are.)


End file.
